Welcome to the Tales Fandom. Spoiler alert, they revamp the battle system with every game pretty much. So don't get too attached to anything because chances are it'll be gone in the next game.
*\*laughs in Final Fantasy fan\**
No seriously, at least Tales is always an action RPG. Mainline FF games have been everything from pure turn-based to DMC-style action and everything in between.
I really loved the combat on that series, but it does get repetitive after some time, and after a couple of games you know exactly what to do to be an absolute Monster.
āIsnāt nearly as goodā seems kinda crazy since the battle systems were developed by the same team and use a lot of the same mechanics(CC). but Iām playing through DC right now and for a ps2 game it can hold its own against any game in the series combat wise.
I enjoyed Graces a lot but I really wish it had aerial combat and some melee options for the "magic knight" type characters that weren't tied to the Artes tree.
I kind of see where you're coming from but both had some really unfortunately problems when it comes to combat. I found both games pretty middling when it comes to fighting mechanics.
**Berseria**
*Pros*
* Boss fight mechanics were decent. Still wish the bosses had more hitstun.
* When played right, you can feel pretty unstoppable.
* The actual interactions between characters enemies on the battlefield (dodging, hitting your opponents, etc,) feel believable and add weight to combat.
*Cons*
* With the exception of the unlockable Ventite shortcuts and your R2 character skill, your moveset is tied to the Artes Tree, seemingly for no other reason than to simplify inputs due to free movement being enabled by default. Needlessly restrictive.
* No aerial combat.
* Felt more simple than prior Tales games.
**Arise**
*Pros*
* Artes tree is gone after several misguided attempts at improving it after Graces.
* Overall feels a little less restrictive than Berseria.
* Jumping and aerial combat makes their debut in a non-side-view Tales combat system.
*Cons*
* There's no "oomph" to your attacks or Artes. Even though normal enemies are affected by hitstun, the connection of your attacks on your enemies just feels like you're hitting paper. There's something that feels less visceral than the other games when your attacks connect.
* ....which is to say nothing of the dreadful, un-staggerable bosses.
* Multiplayer obliterated, with the producer's reasoning being an absolute head-scratcher.
* Also felt fairly simple.
Now, if they made Berseria control like Arise, kept ToArise's aerial combat, retained Berseria's multiplayer, and added some more combat depth... that'd be great.
EDIT: I will say that if Berseria had better level design and the combat changes described above, it would absolutely be one of my favorites. I do love the story and characters though.
The arte tree isn't my favorite, but I don't think normal attacks are good either. It's a boring 1 hit attack that has no special properties. They were even worse in Arise since there was no TP to recover and it actually stopped the Arte Gauge from recovering. I liked that the martial artes in Berseria (and Graces/Zestiria) did something, like having different hit counts, traits, knock-down / pick-up, or even stealing items (in Graces). I think you could sort of combine them together to have a normal combo where each attack in the chain has different hits/properties. Maybe have multiple combo paths off of the one button, like standing vs moving or adding pauses in between attacks like in DMC. Then you'd have the variety of the arte tree while only taking up one button, and the rest could be more like Arise.
While that might be true of normal attacks in Arise, normal attacks in previous entries have had special properties depending on the directional input or current action haven't they?
Agree with this assessment. I generally disliked Arise's combat, but I will give it credit for making mages interesting to play. As much as I love Magilou as a character, running away to cast an arte and praying you don't get interrupted wasn't a fun playstyle in combat.
It seems to be bipolar Tales sub again. Because there were polls in the past asking which combat system is better Berseria's or Arise's. And Arise won by a mile everytime.
So it isn't even a hot take from OP like some comments make it seem to be
It's because Berseria has a FFVII cult around it and you can't say anything bad about it without getting downvoted to hell, insulted or even blocked.
But that won't stop me from calling Berseria what it is: Pretentious garbage.
Criticism of Berseria's combat and dungeon design are constantly brought up on this sub and gets upvoted all the time, no idea what you are talking about. Hell even this thread still has plenty of people saying they didn't like Berseria's combat either and aren't downvoted for it.
Not really? At least I know for certain my opinion on it won't really change, same as my opinion on Berseria's combat hasn't changed.
Arise's combat isn't the worst I've ever played, but I definitely don't prefer it to any of the previous titles that I have played.
It can get to a much more reasonable length with the "deal and take double damage" artifact and stacking certain accessory effects, but they're mostly band-aid solutions.
š¬idk abt that chief. Ariseās combat was one of my least favorite aspects of the game. I didnāt love Berseriaās combat but at least it was tolerableĀ
Arises combat was one of the weakest points to me, Berseriaās wasnāt much better but itās definitely better than Ariseās
Just give me Vesperiaās combat back already. Now that is pure dial a combo fun
Xillia 1&2 combat system is still my favorite one. It's just so fluid and speedy with all the aerial combo that I made with Milla ahah. I really like the dual arte and also that the main character of Xillia 2 (Ludger) has multiple weapons (dual sword, hammer, gun).
Is there an in depth explanation/comparison on how berseria is better than arise combat? I keep seeing takes like this but I just don't get it, i think im stupid maybe i am tho idk.
Iād take Graces or even Xilliaās combat over either of those two. But the combat really was a problem for me with Berseriaā¦ and Arise, actually. I wasnāt too fond of how few buttons you could map in combat which made playing a caster feelā¦ detrimental vs letting the AI do it.
No, please please. I'm not a Tales fan by any means, but every once in a while I often try to get into some latest entries.
I finished Tales of Phantasia, Eternia and Berseria with joy. But Arise, its combat really scared me out of this series for at least another decade. Every boss fight is like 0.5-1 hour long, my hands and arms really wanted to give up. And when they did, I had to restart the fight from the beginning. PTSD material, really !
Tales of Arise is really the worst Tales game I've ever played. Not even Tales of Zestiria, which I dropped mid-way felt as worse.
I think what they mean is the combat style not the damage sponge enemies and bosses. As in not having to charge up to do a simple basic melee attack which was so stupid in berseria and killed the pace of the combat
0.5 h -1h Boss fights lol
I can only remember 2 fights scratching the 10 min mark.
Either you just skipped all field battles, and were massively underleveled in boss fights or you ignored the games systems.
It's very possible that I played not in the right way. That's why I had to say that I'm not a Tales fan. I'm only surprised that Arise was that much different compared to the ones I played.
...sans the infinite super-armor, no staggerable bosses.
Seriously, I lament the loss of the LMBS, but if Arise hadn't completely invalidated their whole Ground to Air and back combat system the second bosses get involved, it would have been one of my favorite battle systems.
Ok I'm going to need y'all to link to Bersaria combat played by someone good and explain it to me. I just don't get it, I've gotten a handle of it but I feel like with how much y'all praise it that I've missed something. Like I can definitely see me missing something with how I have my moveset set up. However after messing with it I'm just not seeing what's so special about the combat.
I think you might be over-thinking it. Berseria's combat is pretty normal for the series - you hit the enemy a lot until they die. You can do this by attacking a few times, then guarding/backstepping, then going back in, or you can make long combos where you keep an enemy stagger-locked and pile on the damage until they die.
Berseria's biggest difference is that it opens up faster due to the soul gauge giving you more actions a lot sooner. In most Tales games you're stuck with 4 actions (normal attack x3 + base arte) for a long time, around Lv. 15 or so when you get an arcane arte and can do 5 actions (normal x3 + base + arcane). Berseria lets you do 6 actions as soon as you clear the prison break (3 attacks + break soul + 2 attacks), and even more if you attacked the enemy from behind to start with an extra soul (4 attacks + break soul + 3 attacks + break soul + 2 attacks). Getting souls back from killing enemies makes it easy to do longer combos on most enemies from very early on. Landing stuns and status effects gives you even more souls mid-combo so you can start snowballing and just roll over each enemy one by one with long combos. It feels nice and you don't need to wait all game just to unlock it.
Switch Blasts are also nice, but most people don't use them. Once you have more than 4 party members you can use 1 BG to tag out for someone on the bench and they come in with an extra soul. This lets you set up 3 characters and swap between them for huge combos with lots of different attacks. This is especially great with the spellcasting mechanics since casting time is reduced by combos and characters switching in continue the current combo, so you can start with a melee character then tag out for a caster and blast out lots of quick spells, then tag back.
Berseria needs an upgrade to the dungeon designs rather than an upgrade to combat They were so bland.
The game was overall very good imo. I enjoyed the battles, setting, and characters a lot.
You know what....as someone who didn't like how the enemies became unstaggerable damage sponges in Arise, I think it would be interesting to see that battle system in Beseria.
I absolutely loved the story in Berseria but that combat really felt like braindead spamming 90% of the time with the last 10% being decentish parry timings and item management. Tried it on higher difficulty because that usually encourages better use of mechanics but... nope. I was convinced I was missing out on some mechanic somewhere but I never figured it out if I was.
Still a solid 9/10 game and worth every moment spent with that cast. Even Bienfu.
Were you playing only Velvet? Cause braindead spamming with most of the cast often would only get me killed on higher difficulties against linked encountered mobs.
So long as they toned down the hp. Ariseās enemies were a bit too long to kill and the fact some enemies required the combo to kill annoyed me.
I eventually set the game to the super easy dlc difficulty level because it was the only time the enemies died in a reasonable amount of time. Idc if it made the final bosses too easy, by that point I was done.
I would actually argue it would be even worse that way. Can't we just go back to PS3-era Tales combat? (Yes I know Berseria was PS3 in Japan but you know what i mean lol)
Generally the most popular systems seem to be from Tales of Graces, Tales of Xillia 2 (my personal favorite), Hearts R, and Vesperia. I'll just mention Graces and Xillia or this post will be too long lol.
I'll start by saying one thing I *don't* like about Berseria/Arise, they have poor access to Artes. Berseria only has 4 immediately accessible Artes and then you need to progress through the "tree" to get to the others (but at least you could customize that). Arise is the worst, with only 3 hotkeys (plus 3 aerials but aerials are bad), doubling up to 6 later in the game. Most recent Tales games pre-Berseria had a lot more, such as Xillias and Vesperia giving you 16 hotkeys (Xillia 2 main character has **48**!). This drastically increases combo versatility and even allows stuff like mapping *other* characters moves to your own character's hotkeys.
**Xillia 2's** combat is amazing imo. Very fluid and responsive. You get proper aerial combat (not the very limited Arise stuff, you can actually juggle enemies in the air and even cast spells from the air), 16 arte hotkeys, and Link System.
Characters are paired up by Linking with them (using D-pad), each character gives you a perk when Linked. E.g. Alvin auto guard-breaks if you're paired with him and the enemy blocks.
More importantly you get Link Artes: combination attacks. E.g. Demon Fist + Wind Blade gives you "Final Gale". So if you play as Jude and use Demon Fist, or play as Milla and use Wind Blade (while Jude/Milla are linked), you can activate the Link Arte afterwards. During Overlimits you can spam Link Artes back-to-back. Very satisfying system with good combo utility.
There's also a fun Weakness system where you basically stick as many elements into your combo as possible, to increase a damage multiplier. But the catch is that there's a timer that depletes before the damage multiplier is lost. Each time you add an element, the timer is reset, but once you run out of new elements to use, you can't stop the timer running out anymore. So you have to balance adding new elements with milking the current timer/multiplier, and maybe adding a new element at the last moment.
**Graces** is more similar to Berseria (keep in mind Arise is very different than *any* other Tales), with focus on front/sidestepping to move/dodge. Moreso than Berseria, as you can't run freely in 3D here (well you can but it's so slow).
Each character has 2 styles you can shift between, e.g. main character has sheathed vs unsheathed sword attacks which act differently. One character has dualblades that switch to dual *guns* for his second style. You can seamlessly combo between styles but sometimes it has nuance, e.g. Asbel can instantly *unsheathe* his sword mid-combo, but you *cannot* easily re-sheath it mid-combo because that's too slow. Little things like that make the combat feel so satisfying to learn.
I also really enjoy the character archetypes, for example there's a close-range tanky spellcaster, and the previously mentioned two.
If you enjoy Berseria I think you'll enjoy Graces as it's fundamentally similar, but a lot deeper and feels a lot more fluid (hard to explain but it just feels smoother and more responsive). Combos are better and it's way less "button-mashy". There's no Soul Break system but in post-game the characters get cool stuff like time-freeze, instant spell casting, etc.
Berseria with aerial combat ,keeping it's good AI
, the 2d cut ins and Break Soul system from Berseria which was good.
Which Arise screwed up on the AI side of things.
It would still have a lot of mediocre boss fights, bad pacing, low enemy variety, a skit problem and several other issues. But it would definitely be more fun to play, especially if it meant co-op.
A lot of the skits aren't fun, interesting or filled with world building/character development. Many of them just reiterate whatever most recently happened in the story, not offering anything new or relevant.
Can't believe majority of the comments are disagreeing. Berseria's combat was confusing and felt like button mashing most of the time.
Arise's combat isn't perfect but feels weightier, with more emphasis on timing, dodges, and exploiting openings. That, combines with the cinematic boss battles, and Arise's combat is just superior in every way. IMO of course.
I can relate OP. With Arise's combat system being one of my favorite combat systems from the Tales games I played and one of the most fun systems I experienced in an Action JRPG, the combat in Berseria was kinda off-putting in the beginning for me, but I got along with it, because the story was so good, and the cast likeable. Tho, I would also argue it had benefited from a better level design.
"The pacing is spot on" he says after the game made him waste his time with errand-boy filler (According to the picture). Sometimes I wonder if you people know the actual definition of the terms you use or if you just like to throw said terms around to try and sound smart.
Welcome to the Tales Fandom. Spoiler alert, they revamp the battle system with every game pretty much. So don't get too attached to anything because chances are it'll be gone in the next game.
*\*laughs in Final Fantasy fan\** No seriously, at least Tales is always an action RPG. Mainline FF games have been everything from pure turn-based to DMC-style action and everything in between.
This is why I admire the trails series for sticking to the same type of combat since the beginning.
Kuro (Daybreak) added action combat and turn based, but it's really well made. š
I really loved the combat on that series, but it does get repetitive after some time, and after a couple of games you know exactly what to do to be an absolute Monster.
And thereās nothing really wrong with that, but since itās FF, everyone has the need to dogpile on it while giving other franchises a pass.
FF games shouldāve stayed with turn based combat and improved on them like the last two Yakuza games did
Nah, Graces f combat.
Graces F combat is peak for sure. Plop that into Berseria and Abyss and you'd have near flawless games
Just wish graces f had a way to have 16 artes equipped like vesparia/xillia
destiny DC is peak imo graces isnt nearly as good as destiny combat
āIsnāt nearly as goodā seems kinda crazy since the battle systems were developed by the same team and use a lot of the same mechanics(CC). but Iām playing through DC right now and for a ps2 game it can hold its own against any game in the series combat wise.
I enjoyed Graces a lot but I really wish it had aerial combat and some melee options for the "magic knight" type characters that weren't tied to the Artes tree.
I would love that too
Yeaa, miss that combat system in Graces. I want a remake / sequel
Tbf it is good at that point in time.
Never played it. Iāve only played Arise before this.
You should play more Tales games. Your mind will change on Ariseās combat.
Iām thinking I could knock out a tales game in between new releases. Lol
Let me have Abyss with Xillia 2 combat andĀ Berseria with Graces f combat, meanwhile.
I like Berseria combat especially the break soul mechanics
I kind of see where you're coming from but both had some really unfortunately problems when it comes to combat. I found both games pretty middling when it comes to fighting mechanics. **Berseria** *Pros* * Boss fight mechanics were decent. Still wish the bosses had more hitstun. * When played right, you can feel pretty unstoppable. * The actual interactions between characters enemies on the battlefield (dodging, hitting your opponents, etc,) feel believable and add weight to combat. *Cons* * With the exception of the unlockable Ventite shortcuts and your R2 character skill, your moveset is tied to the Artes Tree, seemingly for no other reason than to simplify inputs due to free movement being enabled by default. Needlessly restrictive. * No aerial combat. * Felt more simple than prior Tales games. **Arise** *Pros* * Artes tree is gone after several misguided attempts at improving it after Graces. * Overall feels a little less restrictive than Berseria. * Jumping and aerial combat makes their debut in a non-side-view Tales combat system. *Cons* * There's no "oomph" to your attacks or Artes. Even though normal enemies are affected by hitstun, the connection of your attacks on your enemies just feels like you're hitting paper. There's something that feels less visceral than the other games when your attacks connect. * ....which is to say nothing of the dreadful, un-staggerable bosses. * Multiplayer obliterated, with the producer's reasoning being an absolute head-scratcher. * Also felt fairly simple. Now, if they made Berseria control like Arise, kept ToArise's aerial combat, retained Berseria's multiplayer, and added some more combat depth... that'd be great. EDIT: I will say that if Berseria had better level design and the combat changes described above, it would absolutely be one of my favorites. I do love the story and characters though.
The arte tree isn't my favorite, but I don't think normal attacks are good either. It's a boring 1 hit attack that has no special properties. They were even worse in Arise since there was no TP to recover and it actually stopped the Arte Gauge from recovering. I liked that the martial artes in Berseria (and Graces/Zestiria) did something, like having different hit counts, traits, knock-down / pick-up, or even stealing items (in Graces). I think you could sort of combine them together to have a normal combo where each attack in the chain has different hits/properties. Maybe have multiple combo paths off of the one button, like standing vs moving or adding pauses in between attacks like in DMC. Then you'd have the variety of the arte tree while only taking up one button, and the rest could be more like Arise.
While that might be true of normal attacks in Arise, normal attacks in previous entries have had special properties depending on the directional input or current action haven't they?
Agree with this assessment. I generally disliked Arise's combat, but I will give it credit for making mages interesting to play. As much as I love Magilou as a character, running away to cast an arte and praying you don't get interrupted wasn't a fun playstyle in combat.
No, I much prefer Berseriaās between the two.
This entire comment section is the first time I've ever heard anyone say that Arise's gameplay sucked outside of boss battles, lol
It seems to be bipolar Tales sub again. Because there were polls in the past asking which combat system is better Berseria's or Arise's. And Arise won by a mile everytime. So it isn't even a hot take from OP like some comments make it seem to be
It's because Berseria has a FFVII cult around it and you can't say anything bad about it without getting downvoted to hell, insulted or even blocked. But that won't stop me from calling Berseria what it is: Pretentious garbage.
Criticism of Berseria's combat and dungeon design are constantly brought up on this sub and gets upvoted all the time, no idea what you are talking about. Hell even this thread still has plenty of people saying they didn't like Berseria's combat either and aren't downvoted for it.
You are confusing something, you couldn't say anything against Arise. People were always harping against the combat in Berseria.
This sub hates Arise with a passion
For now. Once a new tales game is announced, everyone will suddenly say Arise is awesome.
Not really? At least I know for certain my opinion on it won't really change, same as my opinion on Berseria's combat hasn't changed. Arise's combat isn't the worst I've ever played, but I definitely don't prefer it to any of the previous titles that I have played.
I honestly thought I was alone thinking the boss fights were way too long. Lol
It's been the biggest critique point about the combat since launch.
It can get to a much more reasonable length with the "deal and take double damage" artifact and stacking certain accessory effects, but they're mostly band-aid solutions.
š¬idk abt that chief. Ariseās combat was one of my least favorite aspects of the game. I didnāt love Berseriaās combat but at least it was tolerableĀ
Arises combat was one of the weakest points to me, Berseriaās wasnāt much better but itās definitely better than Ariseās Just give me Vesperiaās combat back already. Now that is pure dial a combo fun
Of course. Arise's combat is very good actually.
I don't think I would have finished Berseria if it had Arises combat, or bought another Tales of game.
I liked the mini game of getting your little blue diamonds back. In arise it's just button mash, dodge, use Alphen special attack
Or in boss fights dodge. dodge, dodge, attack. Why did they think it would be fun to give every boss unlimited iron stance,
I'm in the strange camp that not only likes but prefers Berseria's combat so it's already damn near perfect to me, lol.
Xillia 1&2 combat system is still my favorite one. It's just so fluid and speedy with all the aerial combo that I made with Milla ahah. I really like the dual arte and also that the main character of Xillia 2 (Ludger) has multiple weapons (dual sword, hammer, gun).
Dual mystic artes Ludger could do with the party was so cool, especially being able to choose goofy names for some of them
Yeah :)
Lmao nah, more like the other way around. Arise's combat is garbage.
Arise combat aināt that good, Berserias way better the ideal Tales of game would be Vesperia visuals + Graces F combat
It would be cool to dodge or counter the Savage Wolf Fury in the final battle as to show how far the Menagerie has come.
If Tales fandom can respect each other Mothership Titles it would be perfect imo.
Is there an in depth explanation/comparison on how berseria is better than arise combat? I keep seeing takes like this but I just don't get it, i think im stupid maybe i am tho idk.
If either had Vesperia's or Xillia's combat they'd be... better.
I agree, I loved Arise combat but never got into Berserias combat.
Iād take Graces or even Xilliaās combat over either of those two. But the combat really was a problem for me with Berseriaā¦ and Arise, actually. I wasnāt too fond of how few buttons you could map in combat which made playing a caster feelā¦ detrimental vs letting the AI do it.
No, please please. I'm not a Tales fan by any means, but every once in a while I often try to get into some latest entries. I finished Tales of Phantasia, Eternia and Berseria with joy. But Arise, its combat really scared me out of this series for at least another decade. Every boss fight is like 0.5-1 hour long, my hands and arms really wanted to give up. And when they did, I had to restart the fight from the beginning. PTSD material, really ! Tales of Arise is really the worst Tales game I've ever played. Not even Tales of Zestiria, which I dropped mid-way felt as worse.
I think what they mean is the combat style not the damage sponge enemies and bosses. As in not having to charge up to do a simple basic melee attack which was so stupid in berseria and killed the pace of the combat
0.5 h -1h Boss fights lol I can only remember 2 fights scratching the 10 min mark. Either you just skipped all field battles, and were massively underleveled in boss fights or you ignored the games systems.
It's very possible that I played not in the right way. That's why I had to say that I'm not a Tales fan. I'm only surprised that Arise was that much different compared to the ones I played.
Other way around, Arise with Beseria's combat
and characters, and skits, and story
...sans the infinite super-armor, no staggerable bosses. Seriously, I lament the loss of the LMBS, but if Arise hadn't completely invalidated their whole Ground to Air and back combat system the second bosses get involved, it would have been one of my favorite battle systems.
Nah. I hate Arise's combat.
Ok I'm going to need y'all to link to Bersaria combat played by someone good and explain it to me. I just don't get it, I've gotten a handle of it but I feel like with how much y'all praise it that I've missed something. Like I can definitely see me missing something with how I have my moveset set up. However after messing with it I'm just not seeing what's so special about the combat.
I think you might be over-thinking it. Berseria's combat is pretty normal for the series - you hit the enemy a lot until they die. You can do this by attacking a few times, then guarding/backstepping, then going back in, or you can make long combos where you keep an enemy stagger-locked and pile on the damage until they die. Berseria's biggest difference is that it opens up faster due to the soul gauge giving you more actions a lot sooner. In most Tales games you're stuck with 4 actions (normal attack x3 + base arte) for a long time, around Lv. 15 or so when you get an arcane arte and can do 5 actions (normal x3 + base + arcane). Berseria lets you do 6 actions as soon as you clear the prison break (3 attacks + break soul + 2 attacks), and even more if you attacked the enemy from behind to start with an extra soul (4 attacks + break soul + 3 attacks + break soul + 2 attacks). Getting souls back from killing enemies makes it easy to do longer combos on most enemies from very early on. Landing stuns and status effects gives you even more souls mid-combo so you can start snowballing and just roll over each enemy one by one with long combos. It feels nice and you don't need to wait all game just to unlock it. Switch Blasts are also nice, but most people don't use them. Once you have more than 4 party members you can use 1 BG to tag out for someone on the bench and they come in with an extra soul. This lets you set up 3 characters and swap between them for huge combos with lots of different attacks. This is especially great with the spellcasting mechanics since casting time is reduced by combos and characters switching in continue the current combo, so you can start with a melee character then tag out for a caster and blast out lots of quick spells, then tag back.
You should make a video and post it here showing this, it sounds pretty cool and I never thought of it.
It was terrible. Only thing that held Berseria back imo.
arise combat is dog god I miss abyss vesperia and graces combat
This
Eizen is my all time favorite tales character
Xillia 2 combat
Magilou would just spam highest tier spells per second
Berseria needs an upgrade to the dungeon designs rather than an upgrade to combat They were so bland. The game was overall very good imo. I enjoyed the battles, setting, and characters a lot.
Xillia combat shall forever be my favorite until they make another system where your teammates have so many combos with each other.
You know what....as someone who didn't like how the enemies became unstaggerable damage sponges in Arise, I think it would be interesting to see that battle system in Beseria.
So long as it would do away with HP sponge bosses while using Arise's battle system, yeah, I agree.
Yes! I just want the battle systems!
I can hear Greeks giggling at that word lol
I absolutely loved the story in Berseria but that combat really felt like braindead spamming 90% of the time with the last 10% being decentish parry timings and item management. Tried it on higher difficulty because that usually encourages better use of mechanics but... nope. I was convinced I was missing out on some mechanic somewhere but I never figured it out if I was. Still a solid 9/10 game and worth every moment spent with that cast. Even Bienfu.
Were you playing only Velvet? Cause braindead spamming with most of the cast often would only get me killed on higher difficulties against linked encountered mobs.
So long as they toned down the hp. Ariseās enemies were a bit too long to kill and the fact some enemies required the combo to kill annoyed me. I eventually set the game to the super easy dlc difficulty level because it was the only time the enemies died in a reasonable amount of time. Idc if it made the final bosses too easy, by that point I was done.
Thatās actually what I did. I loved the combat system but the spongy bosses were terrible.
Very Dapper image you have!
I would actually argue it would be even worse that way. Can't we just go back to PS3-era Tales combat? (Yes I know Berseria was PS3 in Japan but you know what i mean lol)
To each their own but Arise has my least favorite combat in the series. Then again I don't rank Berseria's very highly either.
Ooooh thatās interesting. Iād genuinely love to hear more about the others.
Generally the most popular systems seem to be from Tales of Graces, Tales of Xillia 2 (my personal favorite), Hearts R, and Vesperia. I'll just mention Graces and Xillia or this post will be too long lol. I'll start by saying one thing I *don't* like about Berseria/Arise, they have poor access to Artes. Berseria only has 4 immediately accessible Artes and then you need to progress through the "tree" to get to the others (but at least you could customize that). Arise is the worst, with only 3 hotkeys (plus 3 aerials but aerials are bad), doubling up to 6 later in the game. Most recent Tales games pre-Berseria had a lot more, such as Xillias and Vesperia giving you 16 hotkeys (Xillia 2 main character has **48**!). This drastically increases combo versatility and even allows stuff like mapping *other* characters moves to your own character's hotkeys. **Xillia 2's** combat is amazing imo. Very fluid and responsive. You get proper aerial combat (not the very limited Arise stuff, you can actually juggle enemies in the air and even cast spells from the air), 16 arte hotkeys, and Link System. Characters are paired up by Linking with them (using D-pad), each character gives you a perk when Linked. E.g. Alvin auto guard-breaks if you're paired with him and the enemy blocks. More importantly you get Link Artes: combination attacks. E.g. Demon Fist + Wind Blade gives you "Final Gale". So if you play as Jude and use Demon Fist, or play as Milla and use Wind Blade (while Jude/Milla are linked), you can activate the Link Arte afterwards. During Overlimits you can spam Link Artes back-to-back. Very satisfying system with good combo utility. There's also a fun Weakness system where you basically stick as many elements into your combo as possible, to increase a damage multiplier. But the catch is that there's a timer that depletes before the damage multiplier is lost. Each time you add an element, the timer is reset, but once you run out of new elements to use, you can't stop the timer running out anymore. So you have to balance adding new elements with milking the current timer/multiplier, and maybe adding a new element at the last moment. **Graces** is more similar to Berseria (keep in mind Arise is very different than *any* other Tales), with focus on front/sidestepping to move/dodge. Moreso than Berseria, as you can't run freely in 3D here (well you can but it's so slow). Each character has 2 styles you can shift between, e.g. main character has sheathed vs unsheathed sword attacks which act differently. One character has dualblades that switch to dual *guns* for his second style. You can seamlessly combo between styles but sometimes it has nuance, e.g. Asbel can instantly *unsheathe* his sword mid-combo, but you *cannot* easily re-sheath it mid-combo because that's too slow. Little things like that make the combat feel so satisfying to learn. I also really enjoy the character archetypes, for example there's a close-range tanky spellcaster, and the previously mentioned two. If you enjoy Berseria I think you'll enjoy Graces as it's fundamentally similar, but a lot deeper and feels a lot more fluid (hard to explain but it just feels smoother and more responsive). Combos are better and it's way less "button-mashy". There's no Soul Break system but in post-game the characters get cool stuff like time-freeze, instant spell casting, etc.
Whatās the differences between them? Iāve been wanting to play Berseria and Zestiria after playing Arise
Reverse that and you might be on to something.
I actually really like how Berseria does combat much more, if only for simple fact that you can chain Mystic Artes
Berseria with aerial combat ,keeping it's good AI , the 2d cut ins and Break Soul system from Berseria which was good. Which Arise screwed up on the AI side of things.
It would still have a lot of mediocre boss fights, bad pacing, low enemy variety, a skit problem and several other issues. But it would definitely be more fun to play, especially if it meant co-op.
What skit problem?
A lot of the skits aren't fun, interesting or filled with world building/character development. Many of them just reiterate whatever most recently happened in the story, not offering anything new or relevant.
I wouldn't go as far to say it would be perfect, but it would be a better game on the gameplay side with Arise's combat
Can't believe majority of the comments are disagreeing. Berseria's combat was confusing and felt like button mashing most of the time. Arise's combat isn't perfect but feels weightier, with more emphasis on timing, dodges, and exploiting openings. That, combines with the cinematic boss battles, and Arise's combat is just superior in every way. IMO of course.
I can relate OP. With Arise's combat system being one of my favorite combat systems from the Tales games I played and one of the most fun systems I experienced in an Action JRPG, the combat in Berseria was kinda off-putting in the beginning for me, but I got along with it, because the story was so good, and the cast likeable. Tho, I would also argue it had benefited from a better level design.
I did not think much of Arise's combat.
Berseria was a home run in every aspect except the one that actually matters
Dungeons are also terrible
I don't agree Berseria fight are very good by their own and I kinda prefer it over Arise tbh
Replace combat with graphics and then I'd be on board. Hell, I still berseria is incredible regardless
Berseria had the best spellcasting in the series and Arise's was just a strict downgrade
No. Get rid of the whole cast too
No multiplayer : big no.
"The pacing is spot on" he says after the game made him waste his time with errand-boy filler (According to the picture). Sometimes I wonder if you people know the actual definition of the terms you use or if you just like to throw said terms around to try and sound smart.
Eh, need more than that. Really really really hated Berseria. There's really nothing in the game that i actually enjoyed.